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In a recent series of Medium articles , ConsenSys announced a new spin-out called Grid+ , which uses the public Ethereum network to fundamentally disrupt the electricity industry.
Grid+ recently published their whitepaper, which discusses their plans to create several Ethereum-based “retail electricity providers” (a.k.a. utilities) around the world.
The whitepaper outlines the use of a “smart-energy agent” hardware device that allows customers to pay for their electricity in real-time using state-channels. These payments are made with “BOLT” tokens, a stable-coin issued by Grid+ and backed by USD deposits. The purchase and settlement of electricity in near real-time eliminates the risks of bad-debts which will allow Grid+ to offer rates ~38% lower than competitors.
The whitepaper goes on to discuss operating a large Raiden hub using these stable tokens as liquidity, which could be used for commerce outside of the Grid+ platform.
No surprise for ConsenSys

The creation of a dedicated ConsenSys company in the Energy space should come as no surprise given its long history of blockchain-based electricity projects, such as the Transactive microgrid in Brooklyn and Co-tricity . ConsenSys Enterprise Managing Partner Mark D’Agostino said:

“The formation of Grid+ is a natural extension of the energy projects we have been working on with Fortune 50 companies for the last two years. Grid+ will enable us to move faster and transition the Ethereum-based electricity trading and control platforms we have demonstrated to a much larger scale.”

Grid+ plans to have its token sale sometime this fall and will begin signing up customers for its first utility (which will be located in the United States) in Q1 2018.
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